This post is almost a joke really, as we never actually had any request put to us about Pico from BECA adding anyone to the "team" of people looking after us. Until we met Lorenzo in early 2017, we had met a few others at BECA who had come and gone so fast I don't even remember their names. But none seemed to hang around very long.
Pico was the main constant.
However, Lorenzo initially made a weird impression on me. I can't tell you what it was about him that I disliked, but from the first time I met him, I said I didn't like him. I didn't trust him. Something about him really just made me feel uneasy and not confident. Maybe it was the wishy washy demeanour he displayed. Could have been the wet fish handshake. Possibly the fact that he refused eye contact and had a moustache like a 70's port star.
Who knows.... but I do know that when I trust my instincts, I tend to be right about people.
I didn't honestly get a solid feeling about Pico, but he was at least appearing to be listening to us, where right from the get go, Lorenzo just didn't.
I still can't figure out whether he was just not very intelligent, or whether he just didn't care about the clients at all, or whether he was simply so poorly trained that he wasn't capable of doing his job competently but either way, he was terrible to deal with.
He didn't provide a single set of minutes for meetings.
There were items we asked for that were never delivered like the details we should have had - like asking for a render of the plan, which was sent to BECA and we still have never seen.
Questions we asked about the contract that have never been answered.
There were changes made to our design with no thought or care as to the consequences to finances and other parts of the plan - such as changing the fire door orientation and costing us $3000 as the door then became non-compliant and downright dangerous so we had to fix this.
He consistently followed Pico's lead in making changes that would cost us large sums of money. and even when given a clear instruction, he completely ignored it - like when I instructed him not to provide a quote for ridiculously priced items such as for the bathroom, where I told him we didn't want to pay $3500 for a single vanity, and he promptly emailed me a quote with a link to a $3500 vanity for the ensuite, then he got so confused as to why I got exasperated and angry with him.
He would ask questions which required rapid answer, but he failed to give us all of the information - like coming to us to ask where we wanted the extraction vent and telling us we could have it anywhere, then when we asked for the logical directly behind the unit, not telling us the consequences of that decision. Which in the end was the architects who approached us to tell us that this would mean a firewall penetration requiring a consent amendment and a very expensive penetration process. Where they suggested a deck exit which cost us almost nothing and had no firewall penetration.
He would completely ignore my input to my own house. And brush off all concerns as if they were unimportant and I was being silly.
We would ask a question and he would look at us blankly. He couldn't answer anything we asked without having to go away to find out the answer.
He didn't take any notes that were useful or legible, so he rarely remembered said questions without having to be chased for the responses and some days I actually rolled my eyes in front of him because I was so over the utterly incessant drone of his lack of understanding.
I copped many a kick in the shins, as I was being told to play nice - but I tell you there is only so long you can play nice with a person who appeared to be so unable to do his job that I asked Pico several times if they could get rid of him.
To this Pico also failed to both understand and action my concerns seriously.
I asked Pico no less than 9 times in total to remove Lorenzo from our project.
I asked nicely.
I yelled at Pico.
I threatened to trespass him from our property and I told Pico and two of his seniors that should Lorenzo have ANY part of this project, even behind the scenes, that I would not pay them any more money and I would trespass all of them from this property.
It baffles me, that when as a client, I was asking for them to reassign a person who was making so many mistakes I lost count of them all, BECA refused to take me seriously.
I had complete strangers ask who the creepy guy was. And I had to bite my tongue on the regular because what I really wanted to say to him, I was trying very hard not to let slip.
Just writing this actually makes me irrationally irritated. And honestly, if I ever see this man in public, now that I don't have to care at all what he thinks, I will most likely be unable to help myself but I'll tell him exactly what a disgusting human he is and how he is utterly incompetent at his job and he almost ruined our development. I really hope that he has not been allowed to ruin any other people's projects with his gross incompetence and his lack of ability to interact with people and treat them with any kind of respect.
I feel like BECA need to read this easy little customer service PSA....
I wish I knew what his problem was with us as all we wanted was to be listened to and for the people who were supposed to be working FOR us, to do their jobs as they were supposed to do.
It literally makes my brain explode that a company as large as BECA, couldn't seem to get a grasp on the most simple concept of keeping the customer happy.
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